Other How does eSIM work?

gourav

Skilled
I have Pixel 4a which supports one physical and one eSIM. I need to get a secondary number from Vodafone, which doesn't provide eSIM on prepaid. So I'll have to put my primary Airtel number on eSIM. I'm a bit apprehensive about this as I don't know how it works.

So in case anyone is familiar, please help me by clarifying some of my doubts:

1. What happens if I want to change my phone?
2. What happens if I want to change my phone with no access to my current phone (lost/dead)
3. What happens if my new phone doesn't support eSIM?
4. What happens if I reset my phone?
 
 
  1. If you want to change your phone, you can simply transfer your eSIM profile to your new phone. You will need to follow the instructions provided by your eSIM provider or carrier on how to transfer your eSIM profile. Typically, this involves scanning a QR code or entering an activation code on your new phone.
  2. If you want to change your phone with no access to your current phone (lost/dead), you will need to contact your eSIM provider or carrier to deactivate the eSIM profile on your lost or dead phone. Once the eSIM profile is deactivated, you can request a new eSIM profile to be activated on your new phone.
  3. If your new phone doesn't support eSIM, you will need to use a physical SIM card instead. You can either request a physical SIM card from your eSIM provider or carrier or purchase one from a local mobile phone shop. You will need to activate the physical SIM card and follow the instructions provided by your carrier to transfer your mobile number and plan to the physical SIM card.
  4. If you reset your phone, your eSIM profile will be deleted from your phone. You will need to reactivate your eSIM profile by following the instructions provided by your eSIM provider or carrier. Typically, this involves scanning a QR code or entering an activation code to download and activate the eSIM profile on your phone again.
 
  1. If you want to change your phone, you can simply transfer your eSIM profile to your new phone. You will need to follow the instructions provided by your eSIM provider or carrier on how to transfer your eSIM profile. Typically, this involves scanning a QR code or entering an activation code on your new phone.
  2. If you want to change your phone with no access to your current phone (lost/dead), you will need to contact your eSIM provider or carrier to deactivate the eSIM profile on your lost or dead phone. Once the eSIM profile is deactivated, you can request a new eSIM profile to be activated on your new phone.
  3. If your new phone doesn't support eSIM, you will need to use a physical SIM card instead. You can either request a physical SIM card from your eSIM provider or carrier or purchase one from a local mobile phone shop. You will need to activate the physical SIM card and follow the instructions provided by your carrier to transfer your mobile number and plan to the physical SIM card.
  4. If you reset your phone, your eSIM profile will be deleted from your phone. You will need to reactivate your eSIM profile by following the instructions provided by your eSIM provider or carrier. Typically, this involves scanning a QR code or entering an activation code to download and activate the eSIM profile on your phone again.
This post is kinda informative but it reads like an AI generated post, what do you think @gourav ?


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Lol, good catch.

I should have thought of that myself. ChatGPT is going to kill human interaction when there was already very little left to kill.
You shouldn't worry about eSIM for the long-term apart from the fact that you cannot phone hop easily and there is a down time switching profiles.
 
eSIMs: my experience with helping my friend when they lost their phone was... terrible. Normally, you'd call the customer service, verify something and your number would be deactivated, but in this case, we had to call Jio( eSIM provider ), ask them to deactivate it, had to talk back and forth with their AI, then used their online chat service, talked to another AI, then finally had to go to a nearby Jio store to finally be able to deactivate it.

In case of Jio physical sim, we called their helpline, verified via "alternate number or email" and it was blocked. They also had the option to go to their store and block it, if we couldn't do it via the customer service, but that wasn't needed. You still need to go to the store for the replacement SIM, though.

I'm not sure why both of them went so differently (both had alternate number and email), but that was just my experience. My suggestion would be to link your MyJio account with 2 or more numbers, if possible. Same for MyAirtel or anything else. Kind of sad that you need their apps to do any of the stuff, but it is what it is.

A bit off-topic but I really hate how all of our modern "conveniences" are so tied to our phones or phone applications with no web-based alternative that it's a really big PITA to do anything if we lose access to our phone... Authentication via phone, carrier services via phone application instead of online, "passwordless" sign-ins etc
 
eSIMs: my experience with helping my friend when they lost their phone was... terrible.
After reading around a bit, I figured as much. Eventually just bought a cheap Nokia phone for the secondary SIM. Can't have so much hassle on my primary number, it would have been somewhat ok on my secondary number.

The worst of it is that every SIM change is treated by Airtel like a new connection and SMS is blocked for 24 hours. So if I changed to eSIM, SMS blocked. Later if I changed back to physical SIM, SMS blocked. Can't have that kind of disruption on my primary number as there are quite a few OTPs I need (since, as you mention in your second point, lots of services are tied to SMS).

A bit off-topic but I really hate how all of our modern "conveniences" are so tied to our phones or phone applications with no web-based alternative
This is actually annoying. Many websites have now stopped login using password completely and only offer OTP based login. It's still ok if they offer both email and SMS OTP, but some only allow SMS OTP.
And when it comes to 2FA, many websites want to implement their own proprietary algorithm instead of standard TOTP algos, meaning we need another app instead of using the same TOTP authenticator we use for everything else.
 
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